The Stepfather Review

TV movie quality remake with gratuitous Amber Heard panty shots.

The Stepfather is a remake of the 1987 cult classic that starred future Lost cast member Terry O'Quinn as a serial killer who ingratiates himself into one doomed family after another. Dylan Walsh plays the title role this time, opposite Sela Ward as his unsuspecting mark-turned-fiancee.

We know from the first scene (a less dramatic homage to the original's infamous opening) that "David Harris" (Walsh) is not who or what he claims to be and that the police are looking for this cross-country killer. A year after fleeing the scene of his last family massacre, David meets Susan Harding (Ward) and her two young kids at a supermarket in Oregon. He seems nice and reliable, two things that Susan's ex-husband Jay (Jon Tenney) wasn't. Within six months, David is living with Susan with an eye toward marriage. Even better, her kids like him ... the ones he's met anyway.

Susan's wayward eldest son Michael (Penn Badgley) returns home from military boarding school, much to the delight of his mom and his insanely hot girlfriend Kelly (Amber Heard, who spends most of the movie in a pool). David -- who passes himself off as a widower and spouts corny platitudes about family -- goes out of his way to make Michael feel welcome. He tells Michael that his mission is to make the Hardings a family again; all he wants is a place in it. Susan's sister Jackie (Paige Turco) and friends all adore David ... until his reluctance to provide proof of his past, his locked basement cabinets, his lack of IDs and photos of himself finally begins to raise suspicion. Michael will have to become the man of the house if he's going to save his family from the wolf in their fold.

This redo of The Stepfather is a perfectly generic thriller, and as far as remakes of recent horror classics go, it's neither the best nor the worst of them. Indeed, it seems just fine with being average. If you like paint-by-numbers "monster in the house" thrillers then you'll probably be just fine with this. The problem with the film is that -- tabling the fact that it's a remake for a moment -- it looks and feels like a TV movie, largely because its entire cast (with the exception of Heard) are all TV actors: Nip/Tuck's Walsh, Gossip Girl's Badgley, series veteran Ward, Damages's Turco, The Closer's Tenney, and ER's Sherry Stringfield (inexplicably cast in an utterly thankless, third-tier role as Turco's BFF or maybe girlfriend, it was never quite clear). Given the cast and the film's modest execution by (TV series) director Nelson McCormick, this Stepfather feels more like a women in peril/ripped from the headlines Lifetime telepic than a feature.

Watch IGN's interviews with the cast of The Stepfather.

What makes The Stepfather work on a primal level is that its concept is as old as fairy tales (the wicked stepmother) and as current as the daily news: the fear that those you have come to know, trust and love are not who or what they seem to be and can violently turn on you. It's a simple but entirely relatable premise that allows any viewer to connect with it, but that's not enough to make The Stepfather fully work as a horror-thriller. The film's replete with stock shocks, jump cuts, and moments lifted from other films besides the original (namely a frightened cat/killer behind you bit that's right out Alien). As in so many films of this nature, characters behave foolishly and stubbornly cling to their ignorance even when all signs clearly point to the villain being, well, the villain.

For such an elusive serial killer, David sure does make some rookie mistakes, such as flubbing the name of his dead daughter and blurting out incriminating lines in too many "did I just say that out loud?" moments. He can text and delete photos from someone's cell phone, but can't figure out how to silence it without breaking it. Walsh is hit-and-miss as David, nailing one moment with sly nuance and being way too obviously "eeeeeeeeveeeeel" the next. In a case like that, one suspects the director and script deserve more of the blame than the actor since he clearly was capable of subtlety when necessary. Walsh's interpretation may not be as memorable as Terry O'Quinn's Jerry Blake, but he has an Everyman quality that works well overall.

The rest of the cast is serviceable. Tenney has a few nice moments as Ward's ex-husband, while Ward has perhaps the toughest role in the movie: playing blissfully ignorant without seeming like a total idiot you'll want to root against. Unfortunately, her face is robbed of much expression and is distractingly frozen and plasticy throughout. Badgley's performance is pretty bland overall, but he manages to not overdo the teen angst schtick, which is good since he looks far too old to be trying for his license and going off to college. Amber Heard spends the entire movie damp and not wearing anything more than a bikini or panties; she wins our Odette Yustman Award for Most Gratuitous Cameltoe in a Recent Horror Movie. If that's all you want from her in this movie then consider that requirement sufficiently satisfied.

The Stepfather should entertain audiences looking for nothing more than the predictable but safe scares of a rote thriller, but overall this competently produced yet uninspired retelling offers nothing to transcend its cult classic predecessor or to distinguish itself from the slew of similarly themed made-for-TV movies that followed it.